Director, Organizational Development

About the People Team

The People team builds the systems, programs, and culture that let a virtual-first, AI-first company move fast without losing its edge. Organizational Development sits at the center of that work — designing how Thumbtack develops leaders, grows careers, structures teams, and navigates change. We’re a small, senior team with an unusually wide surface area: our programs reach every employee, and our partners are the executives running the business.

About the role

We’re seeking a Director of Talent & Organizational Development to raise both the floor and the bar for performance and capability across Thumbtack, building the talent systems, leadership practices, and developmental plan to enable our talent to scale ahead of the business. Reporting to the Head of People, you’ll set the multi-year direction for an integrated portfolio spanning performance management, career architecture, talent and succession planning, leadership development, organizational design, and enterprise change.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You’ll lead a small team of experienced practitioners while partnering directly with senior leaders and HRBPs on Thumbtack’s highest-priority talent and organizational challenges. You’ll move comfortably between company-wide strategy and detailed execution: advising leaders, designing frameworks and operating rhythms, building development experiences, and ensuring the work translates into stronger performance, deeper talent density, and clearer paths for growth.

Your initial priorities will include strengthening how Thumbtack sets and evaluates performance expectations; evolving career, talent, and succession frameworks; building leadership and organizational capabilities for the company’s next stage; and establishing a clear measurement system for the impact of these investments.

What you’ll do

• Set and own Thumbtack’s multi-year Talent and Organizational Development strategy, integrating performance management, career architecture, talent and succession planning, leadership development, and change into a focused roadmap with measurable outcomes.
• Evolve how Thumbtack defines, enables, and assesses performance strengthening goal setting, expectations, feedback, calibration, and accountability so high performance is clear, consistent, and differentiated.
• Maintain and evolve the company’s career architecture, including role and level frameworks, capability expectations, and career paths that give employees clarity and support consistent talent decisions.
• Lead talent planning and succession practices that help leaders assess talent, identify critical capability and bench gaps, accelerate high-potential employees, and make deliberate decisions about the organization’s future needs.
• Design scalable development experiences that close meaningful capability gaps, strengthen manager effectiveness, and prepare senior leaders for greater complexity and scope.
• Apply an AI-first approach across the portfolio, building workflows that improve insight, personalization, and scale while helping managers and leaders develop the capabilities needed to lead in an AI-first company.
• Establish an integrated measurement framework for Talent and Organizational Development, using business, talent, and program data to evaluate impact and determine what to scale, change, or stop.

In order to be successful, you must bring

• 10+ years of experience across talent management, organizational development, learning and development, or related disciplines, including 4+ years leading and developing people
• Deep expertise in talent management—including performance, career architecture, talent planning, and succession—along with demonstrated strength in leadership development, organizational effectiveness, and change management
• A track record of personally designing and implementing scalable talent and organizational solutions, with clear evidence of the performance, capability, or business outcomes they produced
• Credibility with senior leaders and the ability to lead through ambiguity, influence without formal authority, and turn complex or sensitive issues into decisions and action
• An AI-first approach to work, including hands-on experience building multi-step workflows and sound judgment about the use of AI in sensitive people processes and decisions
• A player-coach orientation and analytical mindset: comfortable moving between strategy and detailed execution, grounding solutions in adult-learning and talent-management practices, and using data to improve what you build
  

Expected salary ranges

• For candidates living in San Francisco / Bay Area, San Jose, New York City, or Seattle metros, the expected salary range for the role is currently $270,000 - $330,000.
• For candidates living in Austin, TX or Washington DC metros or in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Washington states, the expected salary range for the role is currently $243,000 - $297,000.
• For candidates living in all other US locations, the expected salary range for this role is currently $230,000 - $281,000.